module leader: dr. antonia svensson- dianellou some slides by dr. n. ryder (uh) and k. kostakou...

MODULE LEADER:DR. ANTONIA SVENSSON-

DIANELLOU

SOME SLIDES BY DR. N. RYDER (UH)AND K. KOSTAKOU (IST)

Developmental Psychology Week 1

Module Aims

Learn about the central questions and findings of developmental psychology with an emphasis on childhood but including adolescence and adulthood (weeks 8-10)

Explore the ways in which psychologists go about studying these questions.

Learn about theories of developmentExplore the relationship between theory and

empirical research Learn to read primary psychological

literature (journal articles)

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Resources

Lecture slides on Studynet are only a brief guide. Make meaningful connections, don’t just memorise.

Module outline under Module Information (DMD)

Text books: Smith, Cowie & Blades (2003) Understanding Children’s

Development (2 copies in library)Siegler, Deloache and Eisenberg (2006) How children

developHarris and Butterworth (2002) Developmental Psychology Slater and Bremner (2004, 2011) An Introduction to

Developmental Psychology (2 copies in library)Harris (2008) Exploring Developmental Psychology It is essential to read the Journal articles

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Module Assessment

5% presentation of a journal article Students will be allocated a journal article and given 1

week to read it and present a 10- 15 minute critical summary to the class

15% multiple choice test Students are responsible for attending the date of the test.

Failure to attend will result in a zero being recorded. No alternative dates Normal extenuating circumstances procedures apply (see

student handbook for details).

80% Exam – past papers available on Voyager but note there are some topic changes this year.

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Lecture Topics

Theories and methods of developmental psychology

Conception Infancy, including attachment

Language and interactionSocioemotional developmentPlay and peer interactionPhysical and cognitive developmentChildcare, school and bullyingChildhood disorders incl. AutismAdolescenceEarly-adulthoodMid-adulthoodOlder age

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Developmental Psychology

DefinitionThe branch of Psychology that attempts to

describe and explain the changes that occur over one human’s lifetime in the thought, behavior, reasoning and functioning due to biological, individual and environmental influences.

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Nature of Development

Change occurs all the time and throughout the lifespan

Change that is part of the process by which over time children move from a less mature to a more mature way of thinking and behaving

Psychologists look at behaviour and describe it but more importantly they ask:

What are the actual mechanisms responsible for change?

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Child Development

Definition of development: Change in the child that occurs over time. Changes

follow an orderly pattern that moves toward greater complexity and enhances survival.

Periods of development: Prenatal period: from conception to birth Infancy and toddlerhood: birth to 2 years Early childhood: 2-6 years old Middle childhood: 6-12 years old Adolescence: 12-19 years old

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Domains of Development

Development is described in the following domains, but growth in one domain influences the other

domains.Physical Domain:

body size, body proportions, appearance, brain development, motor development, perception capacities, physical health.

Cognitive Domain: thought processes and intellectual abilities including attention,

memory, problem solving, imagination, creativity, academic and everyday knowledge, metacognition, and language.

Social/Emotional Domain: self-knowledge (self-esteem, metacognition, sexual identity, ethnic

identity), moral reasoning, understanding and expression of emotions, self-regulation, temperament, understanding others, interpersonal skills, and friendships.

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Central issues in Developmental Psychology

Children undergo huge changes - physical mental motor social emotional cognitive - skills develop

Important to remember the inter relatedness of changes – one can affect the other i.e. cognitive thinking is closely linked to emotional change.

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Social Construction of ‘childhood’:Beliefs vary across time and culture

During medival period:Children seen as little adultsChildhood was not a unique phaseChildren were cared for until they could begin caring for themselves, around 7 years oldChildren were treated as adults (e.g. their clothing, worked at adult jobs, could be married, were made into kings, were imprisoned or hanged as adults)20th Century:Theories about children's development expanded around the worldChildhood was seen as worthy of special attentionLaws were passed to protect children

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to which extent does development occur through the gradual accumulation of knowledge versus stage-like development,

or to which extent are children born with

innate mental structures versus learning through experience

Many researchers are interested in the interaction between personal characteristics, the individual's behavior, and environmental factors including social context and their impact on development; others take a more narrowly focused approach

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One of the major controversies in developmental psychology centers around whether development is continuous or discontinuous.

Stage theories of development rest on the assumption that development is a discontinuous process involving distinct stages which are characterised by qualitative differences in behaviour (e.g. change in speech)

Stage theories can be contrasted with continuous theories, which posit that development is an incremental process(e.g.vocabulary development)

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Nature/NurtureA significant issue in developmental

psychology is the relationship between

This is often referred to as :

environmental influence innateness

"nature versus nurture" or nativism versus empiricism.

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A nativist account of development would argue that the processes in question are innate, that is, they are specified by the organism's genes.

An empiricist perspective would argue that those processes are acquired in interaction with the environment.

Today developmental psychologists rarely take such extreme positions with regard to most aspects of development; rather they investigate, among many other things, the relationship between innate and environmental influences

One of the ways in which this relationship has been explored in recent years is through the emerging field of evolutionary developmental psychology.

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Theories

Theoretical perspectives attempting to explain development:

Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual theory Erik Erikson's stages of psychosocial development John B. Watson's and B. F. Skinner's behaviorismAlbert Bandura's Social learning theoryJean Piaget’s Stage TheoryLev Vygotsky's Social Contextualism

Many other theories attempting to explain particular aspects of development, e.g.:

attachment theory describes kinds of interpersonal relationships (John Bowlby, Harry Harlow, Mary Ainsworth)

Lawrence Kohlberg describes stages in moral reasoning

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Psychoanalytical Theories

BELIEFS FOCUS ON THE FORMATION OF PERSONALITY. ACCORDING TO THIS

APPROACH, CHILDREN MOVE THROUGH VARIOUS STAGES, CONFRONTING

CONFLICTS BETWEEN BIOLOGICAL DRIVES AND SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS.

Sigmund Freud (1905)

Psychosexual TheoryWas based on his

therapy with troubled adults.

He emphasized that a child's personality is formed by the ways which his parents managed his sexual and aggressive drives.

Jung and Adler18

Erik Erikson (1959)

Psychosocial Theory Expanded on Freud's theories. Believed that development is life-long. Emphasized that at each stage, the

child acquires attitudes and skills resulting from the successful negotiation of the psychological conflict.

Identified 8 stages: Basic trust vs mistrust (birth - 1 year) Autonomy vs shame and doubt (ages 1-3) Initiative vs guilt (ages 3-6) Industry vs inferiority (ages 6-11) Identity vs identity confusion (adolescence) Intimacy vs isolation (young adulthood) Generativity vs stagnation (middle adulthood) Integrity vs despair (the elderly) 19

Behavioral and Social Learning Theories

BELIEFS THAT DESCRIBE THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND NURTURING IN THE GROWTH OF

A CHILD.

•DEVELOPED AS A RESPONSE TO PSYCHOANALYTICAL THEORIES

•BEHAVIORISM BECAME THE DOMINANT VIEW FROM THE 1920'S TO 1960'S

John Watson

Early 20th century, "Father of American Behaviorist theory.”

Based his work on Pavlov's experiments on the digestive system of dogs.

Researched classical conditioning

Children are passive beings who can be molded by controlling the stimulus-response associations.

www.psych.utah.edu./…/Cards/Watson.html

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B. F. Skinner

Proposed that children "operate" on their environment, operational conditioning.

Believed that learning could be broken down into smaller tasks, and that offering immediate rewards for accomplishments would stimulate further learning.

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Social Learning Theory

Albert Bandura Stressed how children learn by observation

and imitation. Believed that children gradually become more

selective in what they imitate.

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Ethology

Examines how behavior is determined by a species' need for survival.

Has its roots in Charles Darwin's research.

Describes a "critical period" or "sensitive period,” for learning

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Konrad Lorenz

Ethologist, widely known for his research on imprinting.

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Attachment Theory

John Bowlby applied ethological principles to his theory of attachment.

Attachment between an infant and her caregiver can insure the infant’s survival.

Theory tested and developed by Mary Ainsworth

Has recently been applied to fields such as psychosis

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Cognitive Theories

BELIEFS THAT DESCRIBE HOW CHILDREN LEARN

Jean Piaget

Cognitive development

theoryChildren "construct" their

understanding of the world through their active involvement and interactions.

Studied his 3 children to focus not on what they knew but how they knew it.

Described children's understanding as their "schemas” and how they use: assimilation accommodation.

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Piaget’s Cognitive Development Stages

Sensori-motor Ages birth - 2: the infant uses his senses and motor

abilities to understand the world Preoperation

Ages 2-7: the child uses mental representations of objects and is able to use symbolic thought and language

Concrete operations Ages 7-11; the child uses logical operations or

principles when solving problems Formal operations

Ages 12 up; the use of logical operations in a systematic fashion and with the ability to use abstractions

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Lev Vygotsky

Socio-Cultural TheoryAgreed that children are active

learners, but their knowledge is socially constructed.

Cultural values and customs dictate what is important to learn.

Children learn from more expert members of the society.

Vygotsky described the "zone of proximal development", where learning occurs.

ced.ncsc.edu/hyy/devtheories.htm

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Systems Theory

THE BELIEF THAT DEVELOPMENT CAN'T BE EXPLAINED BY A SINGLE CONCEPT, BUT RATHER BY A COMPLEX SYSTEM.

Urie Bronfenbrenner (1979)

Ecological Systems Theory‘Development in context’

The varied systems of the environment and the interrelationships among the systems shape a child's development.

Both the environment and biology influence the child's development.

The environment affects the child and the child influences the environment.

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Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model

The microsystem - activities and interactions in the child's immediate surroundings: parents, school, friends, etc.

The mesosystem - relationships among the entities involved in the child's microsystem: parents' interactions with teachers, a school's interactions with the daycare provider

The exosystem - social institutions which affect children indirectly: the parents' work settings and policies, extended family networks, mass media, community resources

The macrosystem - broader cultural values, laws and governmental resources

The chronosystem - changes which occur during a child's life, both personally, like the birth of a sibling and culturally, like the Iraqi war.

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Exlplaining changes over the Lifespan

Shared, age-graded changes: Inevitable for all of us and linked to age (biological – such as

hormones at puberty - and social – such as schooling) Shared Internal changes e.g. Learning to walk means physical

independence but also a move towards greater psychological independence

Cultural or cohort effects: Each culture has its own standards and expectations for e.g.

The age at which people marry The word ‘cohort’ is used to describe groups of individuals

born within a particular historical period who have shared the same experiences e.g. During The Great Depression of the 1920s WW1 or WW2.

Unique life experiences: Abandonment, divorce, death of a family member etc.

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Research Design in Developmental Psychology

Research designDevelopmental psychologists have a number of methods to

study changes in individuals over time In a longitudinal study, a researcher observes many

individuals born at or around the same time (a cohort) and carries out new observations as members of the cohort age.

This method can be used to draw conclusions about which types of development are universal (or normative) and occur in most members of a cohort.

Researchers may also observe ways in which development varies between individuals and hypothesize about the causes of variation observed in their data.

Longitudinal studies often require large amounts of time and funding, making them unfeasible in some situations.

Also, because members of a cohort all experience historical events unique to their generation, apparently normative developmental trends may in fact be universal only to their cohort.

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In a cross-sectional study, a researcher observes differences between individuals of different ages at the same time. requires less resources than the longitudinal

method, and because the individuals come from different cohorts, shared historical events are not so much of a confounding factor.

however, cross-sectional research may not be the most effective way to study differences between participants, as these differences may result not from their different ages but from their exposure to different historical events.

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An accelerated longitudinal design or cross-sequential study or cohort-sequential design combines both methodologies.

Here, a researcher observes members of different birth cohorts at the same time, and then tracks all participants over time, charting changes in the groups.

By comparing differences and similarities in development, one can more easily determine what changes can be attributed to individual or historical environment, and which are truly universal.

Clearly such a study can be even more resource-consuming than a longitudinal study.

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Additionally, these are all correlational, not experimental, designs, and so one cannot readily infer causation from the data they yield.

Nonetheless, correlational research methods are common in the study of development, in part due to ethical concerns. In a study of the effects of poverty on

development, for instance, one cannot easily randomly assign certain families to a poverty condition and others to an affluent one, and so observation alone has to suffice.

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Techniques for data collection:

Self-Reference

Baby biographies

Observation in multiple settings / in a distinct setting

Experiments

Clinical Interview

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Can one theory explain developmental changes?

Developmental Systems perspective Early developmental theories focus on a nature

or nurture explanation. Harris (2008 chptr 1) describes it as an ‘awful term coined in 1869 by Galton) but in the 20th century no one seriously believes it is either/or.

Developmental change is seen as mere triggering of innate knowledge or as inductive learning (Elman et al 1996)

Margaret Mead 1928

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Interaction

Low serotonin levels in humans are linked to alcoholism and depression.

Identical twin studies can help explain relationships

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Key points

Some of the arguments are very complex but it is important to understand that there are important RECIPROAL influences within and between the different levels of development within the individual. Genetic activity, neural activity behaviour and physical and socio-cultural effects of the environment all interact.

Modern developmental accounts look both at the effects that operate at the level of the individual and those that are evident within a social group or culture.

Theories are complex because they need to consider the interrelation of many different influences on development. Harris (2008) suggests that maybe the reason developmental research often concentrates on data collection and interpretation RATHER than the wider implications of developmental theory.

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A child shapes their own environment

Siegler et al (2006 p11)

Three important factors in early development1 through attention patterns2 through the use of language 3 through play

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Example: Use of language

Infants begin to speak at around 9 to 15m1-2 year olds often talk when they are alone.Siegler et al (2006) suggest they would only

do this if they were internally motivated to learn language – they practise talking on their own even when there is no one around to respond. Crib speech may help to improve speech and exercise the facial muscles, breathing rate, intonation and so on.

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Summary

There is a reciprocal relationship in development: As children develop they contribute to their own

development by experiencing things.

When they are young parents are largely involved in deciding what the child experiences.

As children get older their own choices contribute to their development (including choice of friends, social activities etc.)

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Recommended reading

Core textbooks:Chapters 1 & 2 , Smith et al. (2003)

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Journal article presentation (5%)

Summarise the content of the article If it is long it is very long it is okay to be selective

Criticize the theory being tested How does it compare against competing theories in the

area? What are its strengths and weaknesses? Is it the most

appropriate theory to use in this case?

Does the research design provide a satisfactory test of the research hypotheses? Consider the participants, methods, statistical tests

used if your article is reporting one study or comment on the range of methods if it is a review article

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Journal article presentation (5%)

Are any other explanations able to account for the results? You may wish to highlight problems with the conculsions

or the way in which the authors have dealt with alternative explanations.

What are the implications of the article? Why is it important? How can we use the findings? Recommend future ways of investigating the topic

Guidelines on Studynet

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Next Week

Attachment• Research findings• Theory• Implications

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module leader: dr. antonia svensson- dianellou some slides by dr. n. ryder (uh) and k. kostakou...

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